No really, I am. We've just been sitting on the news for a little over two months, because who can resist being obnoxious for two April Fool's Days in a row? Not us. Now no one will ever believe a word I say again, but it was worth it!

Be glad we waited to tell until now, really. This pregnancy has been really different, which makes us think girl. The difference has included puking or being on the verge of puking my guts out on a daily basis until the last week or two, when I've started to feel pretty safe (though if I have anything else that normally triggers nausea in me, headaches, tiredness, whatever, things are still coming up). So be glad you've avoided hearing me whine about that. On the plus side, I've lost 15-16 pounds, so no matter how crazy my body gets with the weight gain (and despite what doctors say, if you're eating decently, there is /nothing/ you can do to control how much you gain), I'm probably not going to end up a 300 pound monster at the end. If there does end up being a third, like I keep having a nasty feeling there should be, I'm definitely waiting until I've lost most or all my pregnancy and post-partum depression weight.

I'm thirteen weeks along right now and the estimated due date is October 6th. If this one ends up by being two days "late," as Enoch was, they will be exactly 18 months apart. Yeah, this happened a bit sooner than I expected, as in two weeks after I stopped taking my BC, when I technically shouldn't have even been able to get pregnant. I've been convinced of having fertility problems so long that I can't help but still think I have them, but the reality suggests otherwise. Of course, that brings up the question as to why I've never gotten pregnant without meaning to, since we have not exactly always been careful. Maybe my surgery plus pregnancy really did cure my endometriosis? I'm left baffled by the whole situation.

The baby's embryonic name is Superfly. Even though we do actually have names already (even a boy one if needed!), just like with Ja(y)ne, that's what it will be referred to as until it's born.

...I'm pregnant. 0_0

Last night I was extolling my love of cephalopods to bladespark, and it motivated me to finally finish an ATC I started about a month ago. I just had to do the background on it, but between feeling not so great and losing my reference picture (note to self-actually download said pictures, because things on Google Images change /constantly/), I hadn't gotten around to doing so. It's the first time I've used acrylics on traditional media, and wow, I love them so much. With as touch-oriented as I am, I love how full bodied regular artist acrylics are and the wonderful textures I can get. I'm definitely going to stop worrying about my brush marks and stuff on my ponies except for on Hasbro remakes, because I just love texture too much to not have it.

It's trading card size, so IRL it's 3.5" 2.5". On to the ( scan: )

Having spent most of the day offline, I was quite saddened by the news of Arthur C. Clarke's death. I certainly couldn't conceive of a better tribute than that written by Patrick Nielsen-Hayden.

I'm apparently a bit odd in my immediate thoughts and memories going to Rendezvous with Rama rather than 2001, but that was the first book I ever read by him, and the sense of mystery and wonder from it has never left me.

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag 'whoever wants to do it'.

I've been tagged for this a couple of times, so I guess I'll go ahead and fill it out.

1. I have a completely bizarre and unreasonable horror of loose buttons. Buttons attached to clothing are fine and I can even admire them if they're interesting, but loose ones send an atavistic chill up my spine. I have no clue why I react to loose buttons the way most people do to snakes or spiders or whatever, but there you have it. I've been this way as long as I can remember.

2. I have the bad habit of chewing on my cuticles. I've managed to mostly stop biting my nails, but that habit was replaced by the cuticle one, not exactly an improvement.

3. Due to my hypermobility, I am extremely pigeon-toed. Perhaps between my feet and witteafval's, our children will have a chance at normal, straight feet.

4. My feet are also extremely wide. I've had better luck in recent years finding shoes, both because shoemakers have started making them wider on a more regular basis and I also discovered Asics for sneakers, but many of the shoes I've owned through my life have been far longer than my feet were. I wear a 9 1/2-10 normally, and I'd usually wear 10 1/2's, sometimes even 11's.

5. I love stuffed animals. I still have all of my childhood ones that weren't just picked up at a thrift store randomly (and I actually still have a few of those) and I continue to get more. They're overflowing a big net in our room, plus the extremely deep windowsill we have (our windowsills are about 2 feet deep in our apartment. I love it), plus I have a big plastic container with even more in the closet. Then I also have most of my Care Bears on top of shelves in the living room, and some other random animals on my computer desk. As much as Eric jokes about us being overrun by ponies, the real danger is stuffed animals. They're bigger and I don't ever get rid of them. ;)

6. I have green eyes, though some people have trouble seeing this. They sometimes look more grey or blue depending on the day and what I'm wearing, but they really are green. For some reason, my stepdad and a few others have thought they were brown.

7. I don't like kids in general. So many of them are out of control and obnoxious these days and most of my maternal instincts seem to be directed towards non-human animals. Despite this, I obviously have had one, and I do love him. There are also other exceptions to the not liking kids rule, but I've noticed that once they get out of toddlerhood, they tend to get obnoxious and I don't like them anymore. I especially don't like babies. Drool and whatnot that has not originated from my own loins grosses me right the heck out. So there seems to be a window of opportunity between about 18 months and 5 years where kids I'm exposed to frequently I often like.

I'm tempted to ignore C., but whatever. I'll tag the following, though they really shouldn't feel any obligation to do it: thistle_chaser, fealubryne, peppygrowlithe, daltontrix, tiassa, mortuus, and bladespark.

I just finished reading The Darkest Evening of the Year, my first Dean Koontz novel. For some reason, I've always had an aversion to reading him and this book, started in desperation for something to do at my mom's, hasn't changed my feelings.

The main character is a woman who rescues golden retrievers. The book drips with animal rights movement propaganda and beats the reader over the head with guilt. Nevermind that the situation for homeless animals in the U.S. is getting better and better all the time. There are no shelters around here, for example, that kill an animal if it hasn't found a home in three days or whatever. Just a quick glance at the Pet Harbor website where the Ogden Animal Shelter lists all of their animals shows that they've had a number of dogs there for almost a month. Clearly they're just killing animals willy-nilly. Of course I push spaying and neutering. Of course I discourage so-called "backyard breeding" of animals with no genetic screening. And of course animal mills are disgusting, though I do not for one second believe they are nearly as prevalent as this book would have you believe.

It is gripping, but mostly because it's dang confusing. There are several viewpoint characters, some of whom are clearly insane and whose chapters make no sense. You have to keep reading just so you can figure out what the hell these psychopaths have to do with anything. It comes together in the end in a somewhat interesting way, but then ends with one of the lamest deus ex machinas ever. *SPOILER* Both of the good guys are mortally injured on one page, and then the next, they were healed by the dog, who afterwards was just a dog. So, what was the point of even hurting said characters, then?

Thumbs down. While it did the job of entertaining me, it was stupid, especially the end. I am not inclined to pick up anything else of his.

Well, I've just taken the first serious step towards us buying a home. The real estate agent representing the one house we've looked at already naturally was eager to represent us, but I'm not interested in dealing with such a conflict of interest. I found a card for another realtor floating around and called the lady. She was rather huffy, wondering how I got her number (dude, I have your card) and wasn't terribly helpful. She never got back to us as she said she would, and honestly, even if she had, I would have told her to screw it. My mom recommended her hair dresser, who is also a realtor/real estate agent/whatever, so I went ahead and called her today. Wow. Night and day. She was /excited/ to be getting a call from me, took down my information, and told me her broker would be getting in touch with me. He called about an hour later.

Yep, I'm going with her. Someone who actually wants to help me, but given where she normally sells, which is not where we're going to be able to buy, I doubt she'll have any unusual conflicts of interest beyond the fact that the higher the selling price, the more she'll get paid. Unfortunately, that's just a fact of life in Utah, where there really aren't any buyers agents. Since she does the hair of my mom and brother, though, she has a motive to keep me happy.

Now, I've read up a bunch on buying a house, but it is really complex. I'm sure in the future I'll be able to manage on my own, but I just don't feel ready to do it myself yet, especially since we're complicating things by wanting to work with a local program to help people buy homes in our area. It's great, because it gives us a loan that can be used for closing costs and down payments and anything else related to buying the house and is forgiven a bit every year you live in the home until you've been there five years, at which point it is totally forgiven. So if you're willing to stay put for five years, which we are (it's generally not that smart not to stay that long anyway), it's basically free money.

So over the next little while, we'll start looking around, then once Lorelei sells (she's in the shop right now), we'll start hitting things hard. Ideally, I'd like to be in a place in time to plant at least part of a garden this year, though we'll see what happens.

Kids never stop surprising you. I've not been sleeping well lately and have consequently gotten a sinus infection, so I was resting and dozing a bit in the bedroom. Enoch was having fun in the bathroom, flushing the toilet (the lid is always shut because of the cats, so no worries there) and turning on the water in the tub. That was a new one, but I didn't think much of it as he hangs out between the toilet and the tub all the time.

When I decided to get up, I went in the bathroom...only to find him /in/ the bathtub. I have no idea how he got in there at all, let alone without hurting himself. And, of course, he had been in it when he turned on the water, so he was soaking wet. He'd been having a blast. Funny, funny kid. Now I'll have to shut him out of the bathroom as well as the office when I'm resting, but at least he got to have some fun in there tonight.

Happy Birthday, fealubryne!

I've been meaning to mention that at some point in the last week, Enoch got his second tooth. This information became obsolete today, though. When we woke up this afternoon (he woke up freaking early and I made us both go back to sleep after I took my pain pills. Mmmm, wonderful pain-free sleep) and I was messing around in his mouth-lo and behold! He had both outer incisors in the top of his mouth. And now Eric has just discovered an outer incisor on the bottom. Hilariously enough, the second tooth is no longer visible, either because of the swelling from the incisor next to it or it has receded. So in the course of about 12 hours, he went from two teeth to four or five. Nuts. No wonder he was fussy last night.

I've been wracking my brains for an idea of what sort of exercise to do that isn't going to kill my joints and leave me in pain when I'm not exercising. The only idea I've been able to come up with is water aerobics. It being in the middle of winter, more specifically the worst winter we've had in this area in over 20 years, it makes water aerobics outside rather hard. So I bit the bullet and Enoch and I have joined a gym. The extra fee for him made me wince, but then when I considered it in the light of $15/month for up to 60 hours of childcare, it was a lot more palatable.

I went for the first time yesterday despite the class I need to go to being at evil o' clock. It felt wonderful while doing it, but owwwww. After I came home and took a nap, I was in agony. I'm still sore today, but feeling much better, so I'm toying with the idea of going again tomorrow. We'll see. I'm definitely going to make myself go twice a week and maybe see about doing yoga in the afternoon some other day. I just wish exercise wasn't so painful for me now. Yeah, I'd get the usual unused muscle pains and stuff when I'd start exercising when younger, but that almost felt good in a way. The pain I end up in now is nothing but agony.

Enoch just turned Hummin off while Eric was in the middle of a comment. Now Eric feels my pain.

Recently, Scientology has been coming up several different places where I hang out on the internet. I'm particularly disgusted by the discussion on Feminist Mormon Housewives. So many people think that because it claims to be a religion that it's a good thing, and we should be nice and respect it and not make fun of Tom Cruise for being crazy, etc, etc. Some are even comparing them having to pay for classes to tithing, as if they're somehow equivalent.

Let's see...tithing is entirely voluntary and if you say you're paying a full tithe, the LDS church accepts that. You can be a member in good standing without paying tithing. You can be ordained to the priesthood if a man, hold leadership positions, take the sacrament. You just can't attend the temple. In fact, if you've previously been a full tithe payer and no longer are, your temple blessings are still intact, you just can't go again until you correct the situation. Scientology, on the other hand, requires that you take classes that you have to pay for to advance in the religion. They bilk millions of dollars from the poor brainwashed saps.

Let's make another comparison. What happens to critics of the LDS church? Well, uh, nothing, really. Maybe a press release if there's something big and untrue published. What happens to critics of Scientology? They get stalked, harassed, and accosted everywhere they go (see the BBC Panorama program at Google or YouTube. I had more luck watching it on parts through YouTube). They get their background dug into, their name smeared in the area they live, and sometimes even huge documents put up about their lives online.

How about what happens when you join the different churches? There have certainly been people out there who have disowned family members who have joined the LDS church. Note that this is not the convert doing anyway, it is the family. The LDS church would rather the families stay in contact and together, both because we're strong believers in family, and hey, why wouldn't we hope that someday the rest of the family might join? Scientology, on the other hand, often has their members cut off all contact with family who are not Scientologists. The BBC program had an interview with a woman who had received a letter from her daughter to cut off all contact and which noted that any attempts by her mother to try to contact her would be considered harassment.

Even if allegations such as the death of Lisa McPherson are completely unfounded, so much of the without-a-doubt, documented behavior of representatives of Scientology are so downright creepy and bizarre that I see no reason why I should have to be nice-nice and respectful and whatever. There are reasons why, in Britain, you're allowed to list your religion as Jedi on census reports, but the Church of Scientology is /not/ recognized as a religion. It is a cult started by L. Ron Hubbard as a money-making scheme. Why is this so hard to understand? It's only been around a few decades, it's extremely well documented.

As Eric joked last night, if Joseph Smith started the LDS church as a money-making scheme, he sure failed miserably.

To those of you who send me email forwards of various types (i.e. Eric's family), I'm done. I've asked you nicely not to send them. I've asked you not so nicely not to send them. Eric's asked you not to send them. I've put up with it for almost seven years through several different email addresses, on Facebook, and so on and so forth. I am done. Almost all of them are full of lies, and even if you think it's funny, I can guarantee you that I won't because I'll already be annoyed that you sent me a forward.

From now on, I'll be blocking people who send me spam on whatever format they've done it. Send me an email? You'll be put on my spam filter. Harass me on Facebook? You'll be taken off my friends list. I shouldn't have to be doing things like /uninstalling apps/ there just to keep you from spamming me.

You guys are family, you're supposed to be safe to put on my various lists. I shouldn't have to treat you like the various emails that are offering to enhance my male member, so if you don't want to be, stop acting as if you have a stinking virus that's using your computer as a stinking zombie and sending out junk hither and yon without a thought or care in the world.

Blinken died tonight in my arms. I heard a thud out in the living room and went to go see what was up. She was on the floor writing about. I was able to pick her up by scooping my hands around her abdomen, something that she normally never allows. Even once I set her up on the cage, she was not acting right. I took off the collar she had on to keep her from mutilating a sore on her neck and she had definitely lost weight. I weighed her and she'd lost 70 grams. She pooped and it was black and tar-like.

We took the van in today to get it worked on, so I was without a vehicle. Ben wasn't home. My visiting teacher wasn't home. I called my dad, and he headed out immediately, but was a half hour away plus the twenty minutes from here to get to the vet. They agreed to stay open for me as long as I got there by 5:45. Meanwhile, she fell off the t-stand I had on the scale and couldn't perch anymore and was unable to hold her head up anymore. I went and sat down with her and she visibly deteriorated. My dad finally came and she died within two or three minutes of him making it.

I sat with her for a bit, then called the vet to see if they'd go ahead and do the necropsy tonight. They were willing to and my dad insisted on driving, so, as we didn't have a car seat, we set Enoch on the floor of my dad's Suburban and headed down. I was sure she must have had something impacted in her digestive system, because she'd been chewing on her leather collar and the black tarry stools are usually indicative of things not progressing through the system. It turned out that she died of a pulmonary embolism and a blood clot in her aorta, though. She had some dead spots on her liver and blood clots there, perhaps indicative of a forming tumor, and some broke loose. I guess the black stool must have been from blood.

Normally I let the vet dispose of the body, as I have no attachment to the body without the spirit of the creature that inhabited it, but this time I felt the need to keep her. She's in the freezer now, waiting for spring when she can be buried underneath the pussywillow that I planted at my mom's close to twenty years ago.

Superstitiously, I was convinced if I could make it to the year mark without a pet dying I would be out of the danger zone, but it's only been ten months since Valefor died. Goodbye, my sweet, silly emo bird.

I've been laaaaazy and haven't been posting my customs as I finished them. I'm fixing that tonight!

( Cut for tons o' pictures-dial-up users beware! )

My kid is a nut. I was feeling pretty crappy and really needed to take a bath, so I hauled him and some toys in the bathroom and did so. He was fascinated by the water, so I grabbed a couple of his floating bath toys and he went to town. One would allow water in when pushed under the surface and then drain when pulled out, so he kept filling that one up and then chewing on it or splashing with it. He ended up soaked from head to toe, and though we keep it around 65 F in here, he didn't even act cold. I was freezing without clothes on, and he, soaked, was happy as a clam.

It was hilarious to watch him and it kept him entertained, so I'll definitely do this in the future. I'll just take his clothes off first next time.

One day, when I have the money to buy original art, I'm going to be buying something from this website. Amazing!

Oh my, British Starbursts are sooo good. They've got a different texture than ours do and some different flavors. The pack I was sent had strawberry, lemon & lime, orange, and black currant. The black currant flavor is to die for.

Cara, when you and Alex go visit family there, pick me up some Starbursts!

Kids are too funny. Enoch was upset, but me peering at him from the opposite side of the baby gate was funny. Me nibbling on his fingers that he stuck through the gate was hilarious. And best of all? When I put my fingers through, he then nibbled on mine. Quick learner!

He crawls like a champ, keeps messing with my DVD drives, has about pulled Arcadia out of her cabinet a few times, and is getting a tooth. Unbelievable that it's been over eight months already.

Going through a box full of saved papers and such, I found the following hilarious assignment from some class:

11-6-94

In twenty years, I plan to live in the Australian outback. I will live pretty close to the Great Barrier Reef. I expect to be a computer programmer. I will do mostly games, and will be a licensee of Nintendo, Sega, Atari, ect. I will be an entrepreneur. My company will be Firebird Entertainment. As I can't see into the future and see what people I will meet, I don't know if I will be married, and if I am, what my husband will be like.

I will live in a fairly large house. It will have a lot of big rooms, so I can keep my pets separate, and keep the food chain down to a minimal. It will also have an indoor pool, because I love to swim. I don't know if I'll have any children.

I will have gotten a doctorate(or the equivalent) in computer programming for my major, and a major in music for my minor. In my free time I will be swimming, playing with my pets, playing video games, reading, hawking, and sports. For vacations I would be going to the U.S. to visit family, and probably taking tours of places, such as Europe.

I will have a lot of pets. I will have an iguana, some lizards and snakes, fish, some amphibians, a German shepherd, some cats, some rodents, and most of all, birds. I plan on having very rare parrots, such as the black palm cockatoo. I might breed some canaries, parakeets, lovebirds, ect. They're all small, so I wouldn't feel bad about not hand-feeding them. I will also have a falcon, or a hawk.


No wonder my teacher gave me 45 points out of 35. She must have busted a gut laughing at my bizarre delusions of grandeur. I still want that palm cockatoo, though I already have an extremely rare parrot in Blinken (2,000 left in the wild and declining).

ETA: I'm pretty sure the class was my eighth grade social studies class because my teacher, Mrs. Harrop, loved me and was always giving me bonus points on my assignment. Apparently she died a few months ago. Man, it really makes you feel old when your junior high teachers start dying. It wasn't that long ago, was it?